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Review Alpha Protocol is better than Mass Effect 2

Jason

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Tags: Alpha Protocol; Obsidian Entertainment

<p>Tom Chick can think of at least <a href="http://fidgit.com/archives/2010/06/11_ways_alpha_protocol_is_bett.php" target="_blank">11 reasons</a> why Alpha Protocol is a better game than Mass Effect 2.</p>
<blockquote>4) Conversations<br />Your choice of things to say in Alpha Protocol is almost always clear. It's a simple abstract system. You choose among suave, aggressive, and professional comments (the developers break it down as Bond, Bauer, or Borne). Sometimes you get a bonus choice if you've met certain prerequisites. You could almost say it's like a game! But you never feel like you're guessing, which is often the case in Mass Effect 2 where every reply has two layers: what's written and what you actually say. Conversations in Alpha Protocol are clearly intended to be part of the gameplay instead of cat-and-mouse with the writers.</blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://fidgit.com/">Fidgit</a></p>
 

Jaedar

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Project: Eternity Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Pretty good list tbh, although the thing you quoted was pretty lulzy.
 

Felix

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He forgot to mention the e-mails. I loled when I saw Heck's walloftext :lol:
 

KalosKagathos

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Felix said:
He forgot to mention the e-mails. I loled when I saw Heck's walloftext :lol:
heckg.jpg


Could it be a subtle reference to /gd/? :lol:
 

racofer

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~11) As a role-playing game
Alpha Protocol is often awkward and sometimes ridiculous. But it's internally consistent because it is first and foremost an RPG. Sure, it's silly when spies can hide in plain sight like cloaked predators. But stealth is an important "leg" of the game, along with gadgets, hacking, and gunplay. The idea is that you choose among them for the kind of spy you want to be. From there, everything is based on advancing how and how well you do these things. This evolves based on your skills and gear, which are the hallmarks of any good RPG. Contrast this to how Mass Effect 2 distills everything down to crossing space dungeons by playing a streamlined shooter with skills aplenty and gear that doesn't matter so much.

DEEEEERRRRRPPPP I CAN HID IN TEH OPENZ CUZ DIZ AN ARR PEE GEE BUT ME2 WITH ITS CLOAKIN DEVICE FAILZ CUZ ITS LINEAR CORRIDER SHOOTER HHHHHUUURRRRPPP!!! WAIT WAH??!

10) Guns with personality
Gunplay is pretty much a prerequisite for everyone in Alpha Protocol, but each type of gun is like its own type of combat. Or like a character class. For instance, I got all the way through the game with only a pistol because the pistol isn't merely the weakest gun. Instead, the pistol is a specific type of combat. My choice of pistol model, the components I attached to it, and occasionally my special ammo all made a big difference in how the game played. At first, any gun is relatively weak. The pistol can be as much of a struggle as the shotgun, assault rifle, or SMG. But by the time Alpha Protocol was over, I could step into a room with my pistol and instantaneously kill six bad guys without leaving cover.] But Mass Effect 2 never broke out of its rudimentary paper/rock/scissors interplay among attacks and defenses.

Switching guns to deal with different situations is dumbing down. See that guy 2 km away? I will snipe him with my pistol because I have pistol skills level 20. In dumbed down consoletard games like ME2 you have to minigame the gun selection system and pick the sniper rifle.

9) As a standalone game
Mass Effect 2 is full of fan service. It's one of those sequels that absolutely demands familiarity with the first game. This isn't necessarily a criticism if you're a fan of Mass Effect 1. But for everyone else, Alpha Protocol does a better job not expecting you to already care about who's who. Its characters need no introduction because this game is their introduction.

The number 2 sort of implies continuity, something Obsishit knows nothing about given their past releases of Bioware sequels. But hey Obsturd fanboys will surely ignore this if AP2 ever comes out.

8) As a story
Mass Effect 2's storyline is 90% "Hey, we're getting the band back together!" backstory, with 10% actual saving the galaxy at the end. It makes for a disjointed story, with the main dramatic conflict simmering on the back burner while you help your sidekicks work out their family issues. But Alpha Protocol is full of twists and turns. It's constantly forking off into different directions that dramatically change the relationships among the main players. In Alpha Protocol, I feel like I'm in the driver's seat, determining how the story unfolds. In Mass Effect 2, I feel like everyone else's errand boy, biding my time until the story actually starts.

Only it is not. In ME2 you assemble a new team with only two recruitable characters from the first game.

And regarding the "I haz control on teh gaem" for AP, I bet that is true given you can't even know the outcome of your answers in the dialog minigame.

7) As a story narrated by a smoking man
Both Alpha Protocol and Mass Effect 2 use conversations with a mysterious smoker as a framework for telling their stories. By the time Alpha Protocol is over, you will know all you need to know about its smoking man. But I still have no idea what was up with that elusive man in Mass Effect 2, except that he sounds like President Bartlett.

The Illusive Man's intentions are as clear as clean water: Humanity comes first no matter what, and the ends always justify the means. At least he is an original character and doesn't look like a flat out copy of Eli Vance.

6) As a set of clear goals
In Alpha Protocol, it's always clear exactly what you're doing, why you're doing it, and then the effects of having done it (by "always", I mean "always except for at the end"). It never wants for information about motives, personalities, organizations, and agendas. After every mission, you get a modular debriefing that gives you the effects of your choices and where you'll be going from there, broken down meticulously. There's none of the under-the-hood plotting that occasionally made Mass Effect 2 so bewildering.

Felix said:
He's right.

So the Codex agrees that having everything shown to the player, Oblivion-style makes it a better game than not having every piece of storyline immediately revealed? HAHAHA!

Not that I'm saying ME2 is different on this regard, it's as straightforward as it can be but this just goes along proving what a retarded comparison that guy makes, almost skyway style.

5) Showing the world (or not)
Mass Effect 2 moves you through sparsely populated boxes asking you to believe they're vast cities or sprawling space stations. It is absolutely not up to the task of what it intends to show you. But Alpha Protocol is under no such delusion. Its hubs are simply safe houses, and its levels are simply its missions. And although many of the missions are chintzy, there is no failed attempts at world building, because there is no attempt at world building. Alpha Protocol knows its limitations.

AP is open world now and allows free exploration, unlike the linear corridor shooter ME2. And if AP knew its limitations it would not have shipped on its current despicable state.

4) Conversations
Your choice of things to say in Alpha Protocol is almost always clear. It's a simple abstract system. You choose among suave, aggressive, and professional comments (the developers break it down as Bond, Bauer, or Borne). Sometimes you get a bonus choice if you've met certain prerequisites. You could almost say it's like a game! But you never feel like you're guessing, which is often the case in Mass Effect 2 where every reply has two layers: what's written and what you actually say. Conversations in Alpha Protocol are clearly intended to be part of the gameplay instead of cat-and-mouse with the writers.

:epic:

3) Minigames
The minigames in Mass Effect 2 are tedious busywork that feels entirely out of place. But the minigames in Alpha Protocol are varied and fit neatly into the concept of spying. They include pattern recognition, trigger button finessing, and a reverse maze game to represent hacking, lock picking, and rewiring. [color]They're almost always optional.[/color] What's more, you can change their difficulty based on your character's skills and the gear you equip. And even if you don't like one particular minigame - the hacking was particularly tough for me - there's nothing in Alpha Protocol quite so odious and ubiquitous as Mass Effect 2's horrid planet scanning.

The dialog system is a fucking minigame. I would like to see a grenade that allows me to go around that.

2) Gear
The weapons, armor, and gadgets are fantastic in Alpha Protocol, and they all tie neatly into the economy. The game constantly forces tough choices for how you spend your money. Do you buy gear, information, or special bonuses for upcoming missions? There will never be a time you don't want more money to buy stuff. Important stuff. Stuff you really really need. Stuff that gives you an incentive to search for money, blackmail other characters, and get better at the minigames even if you don't like them. In Mass Effect 2, I wasn't even sure why I was buying what I was buying when I was buying it.

Try beating ME2 on insanity without acquiring upgrades and see how far you can go. And not knowing what was being bought? Seriously? It seems reading purchase descriptions is too difficult for the average gamer these days.

1) Steven Heck
Mass Effect 2 doesn't have Steven "Don't call me Steve" Heck.

Nope, it doesn't. It has however about a dozen better characters with better dialog lines and convincing roles than a "done 1200 times before in every movie" elusive kind of guy that happens to know everything the is to know about Taipei with contacts throughout the whole fucking place yet needs your help to get the job done for some reason.
 

Darth Roxor

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Heck was an interesting character. I liked and hated him at the same time, somehow.
 

Dny

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racofer said:
wall'o'text

You fight the good fight bro' but I doubt it was worth the effort. As seen by this "11 reasons why I don't have a life and want to have sex with Christ Avellone" Bobsidian fanboys are of the most utterly retarded monomaniacs kind.

"Bioware is teh evil and Obsidian is teh best evar!!!11!!one!one!"

Fuck even Bobsidian fanboys feel compelled to compare AP to ME even though they always denied the influence. So far Bobsidian's never been able to get an original idea of their own. They started by making two sequels to two Bioware games, expansions and now they "created" AP, which may be based on an original setting but made so many choices that are close to ME's direction you'd have to ask whether AP would have existed if Bioware didn't make ME. From the unreal engine based third person shooting down to the dialog wheel with a very small change to make it look like they're not 1:1 copy of Bioware, it's pathetic. It's not like there are a LOT of "third person cover-based shooter + RPG elements with dialog wheel" on the market, previous attempts at action-RPG shooting (deus ex, bloodlines) had nothing to do with that generation and were FPSes. Bio creates a formula, Obsidian copies it, make small changes and call it their own.

Face it, whether you like ME or not, if Bioware didn't create Mass Effect, Ass Brotocol wouldn't even have been a brainfart in Bobsidian developers mind. AP only exists because ME1 was a success and they had to create their own TPS pseudo-RPG.

Bioware sets the trends that Obsidian follows.
 

racofer

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@ Dny:

"You fight the good fight bro' but I doubt it was worth the effort."

I know what you mean bro, but one can never rest easy knowing he could've spoken out about this nonsense when the time was right, instead of remaining silent knowing nobody would hear anyway.
 

GarfunkeL

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See that guy 2 km away? I will snipe him with my pistol because I have pistol skills level 20. In dumbed down consoletard games like ME2 you have to minigame the gun selection system and pick the sniper rifle.

Except you might not have sniper rifle at all, depending on your class, there are no enemies 2 km away, even the cinematics have snipers shooting from barely twenty-thirty meters and the difference between the guns in ME2 is how often you need to reload and superficial difference in damage-per-bullet.
 

Shannow

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GarfunkeL said:
See that guy 2 km away? I will snipe him with my pistol because I have pistol skills level 20. In dumbed down consoletard games like ME2 you have to minigame the gun selection system and pick the sniper rifle.

Except you might not have sniper rifle at all, depending on your class, there are no enemies 2 km away, even the cinematics have snipers shooting from barely twenty-thirty meters and the difference between the guns in ME2 is how often you need to reload and superficial difference in damage-per-bullet.
Actually I played through MEh with pistols maxed and regretted putting any points in sniper rifles... Dunno about MEh2 though. But then, AP was probably mainly influenced by MEh and not by MEh2.
And to evade the "lol AP is not a sequel"-argument the moron could simply have compared AP to MEh. Otherwise we can compare AP2 to MEh in the future and that would mean that the terrorists Bioware wins :shock:
 

racofer

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@ GarfunkeL:

"the difference between the guns in ME2 is how often you need to reload and superficial difference in damage-per-bullet."

That's incorrect, stop the lies. Every weapon deals different amounts of damage depending on what they're hitting. Some deal more damage to shields (like the Geth Assault Rifle, only available on higher difficult settings by the way) while others deal more damage to armor/barriers/health. Every weapon is different on these aspects and if say, you're playing a soldier in ME2 whom has no access to biotics or techs (unless you specialize in only one of those abilities) then careful weapon selection is required to be effective, and swapping guns is the only way not to get obliterated in higher difficulties.

Not to mention that in ME2 you need to coordinate your teammates. It's not as easy was people make it seem to be unless you're playing on normal or below.
 

made

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I haven't played AP and doubt I ever will, but

Does AP have you circle your mouse cursor across planets for hours on end as a core gameplay mechanic?
Does AP make you drive around in a vehicle with physics straight outta BigRigs?

If the answer to the above is HELL NO! then AP is better than ME.
 

Whisperer

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seriously, there were so many genuinely funny moments in Alpha Protocol that it reminded my that I was playing a game that had real writers on board, damn it! These I can list off the top of my head :

-Your possible response to Steven's wall of text ("Holy crap Steven, we're THROUGH THE ROOF!") and his subsequent message about strawberry prices or smth + Steven "assisting" you with the mounted gatling gun in the Taiwan subway station = WIN.
- The intercepted Halbech, CIA and NSA e-mails.
- The "battle" with Championchik (he brought his fists to a firefight LOL.)
- the three Triad defectors' descriptions.
- Brayko.
- Darcy's "Big gun for Mikey".

This and the fact that it at least has soul, likeable characters (not even the female reporter is annoying at all) and that you can actually screw up your character build like in the old days makes this superior to ME2 in every way, including the AI - dumb but very aggresive in some cases (in AP different minions have different behavior, like VCI rushing you or G22 forcing you out of cover - or everyone using the overpowered grenades, whereas in ME2 cover is God.)

PS : Racofer, godsend1989 seriously wants to outtroll you.
 

Volourn

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FFS

I dunno if AP if better than ME2 or not; but either way, those who like AP should be ashamed of this punk defending it because he comes acfross as a fuckin' moronic loon and tries depsertely to bring AP down with him.

Over half of his reasons are either full bullshit, illogical, retarted, or just minor difference in opinion.

FFS
 

visions

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KalosKagathos said:
Felix said:
He forgot to mention the e-mails. I loled when I saw Heck's walloftext :lol:
heckg.jpg


Could it be a subtle reference to /gd/? :lol:

This raised my interest level for trying out Alpha Protocol from 0/10 to 4/10.
 

Felix

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made said:
I haven't played AP and doubt I ever will, but

Does AP have you circle your mouse cursor across planets for hours on end as a core gameplay mechanic?
Does AP make you drive around in a vehicle with physics straight outta BigRigs?

If the answer to the above is HELL NO! then AP is better than ME.
HELL NO!AP also doesn't have blue boxes poping up everywhere.

I uninstalled ME in disgust after a few hours. Some people said ME2 is better, tried it out: "going around to popeamole to recruit companions I don't give a fuck about, still fucking blue boxes everywhere WTF I don't even", ppl said it's a good or entertaining shooter obviously never play good shooters in their entire life, uninstalled in disgust again. The first time a game made me feel disgusting more than Gears of War.
 

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